Do you count the rounds?

Boots, carbines, and petticoats.

The characters pretty much get into deep dutch because some of them run out of bullets at a really bad time. Then there's guns that get stuck in coat pockets or lost in two feet of snow ...

Reloading can also add a touch of realism. Even with the advent of magazines, strip and speed loaders, loading a gun in the middle of a firefight is one of the most difficult things on this planet.

Professional shooters have very deliberate reloading mechanics. They practice with two hands, one hand, and no hands. Most will drop a partial magazine (1-3 round left) in order to reload a full mag rather than chance dropping the pin on an empty chamber.

Difficulties in loading under duress can also add a great deal of realism to the scene. As Ordinary guy and others have noted, jams aren't infrequent in the real world, with "stove-pipes" being by far the most common. This situation is a relatively easy fix for an experienced operator, but would give average Joe Citizen an ulcer the size of Kansas.

I voted for 'not reloads are glossed over' because I have never written a scene where enough shots are fired to make reloading an issue. I did have a big shootout in a screenplay I wrote but the shootout is happening around the lead and he never even holds a gun in his hand.

Farscape -

John: Don't move. Or I'll fill ya' full of... little yellow bolts of light.


Unless I have a Peckinpah-style gun fight going on my hero tends to count his shots and those of the other guy. If taken by surprise, he always assumes the other guy has more ammo.

My least favorite cliches include the hero losing count when it's established that count is crucial.

And conveniently getting stupid for the sake of the plot and wasting the laaaaast bullet. Sheesh.

The cliche I absolutely hate to the point of stomping on it with both feet is a hero who puts the safety on, then forgets to change it back.

The cliche that makes me want to take a brick to the writer's head is having an anti-gun character suddenly turn into the Terminator after getting enough motivation. The only time I ever bought that one was in High Noon, and I don't think they've bettered it since.

I was just in a gun store yesterday and mentioned a couple of these to the manager, who agreed with me. He appreciated that I was there seeking correct information on a specific firearm and was happy to provide it. Some of that stuff you just don't get from googling. These guys had stories to tell!

Gillhoughly said:

The cliche I absolutely hate to the point of stomping on it with both feet is a hero who puts the safety on, then forgets to change it back.

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I see that a lot on the range with people who shoot handguns equipped with de-cockers/safeties. They shoot a series of rounds, de-cock the weapon, and then place it back in their holster. We have to drill it into their heads that they need to automatically switch it back to "fire" immediately...it needs to be second-nature.

bjb

Well, I've only ever written one book with guns, and counting was essential to the outcoime - rather, that the shooter was to stupid to count!

Speaking of googling, though - do you know of a site with very basic information for a gun-idiot like me?

aruna said:

Speaking of googling, though - do you know of a site with very basic information for a gun-idiot like me?

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This is for historic firearms, but has something up for writers also. http://www.hackman-adams.com/guns/

I've had guns show up in stories, but I haven't yet had a situation where enough shots got fired to warrant counting the rounds. I'd only see it as important if the following conditions are met:

1. The individual shots get mentioned, instead of the proverbial hail of bullets.

2. The weapon is identified, at least specifically enough that it's possible to have some idea of how many rounds it should have in it. Lots of people can't tell a Mosin Nagant from a Winchester 94, but anyone who's watched Westerns will probably know that revolvers often have six bullets in them.

3. The gun comes anywhere near emptying its clip (cylinder, etc) in one scene.

Common occurances

I would agree that many stories include scenes where a few shots are exchanged or a crime is committed using a series of shots. However when an all out gun battle happens, most fail to reflect reality when it comes to the lack of awareness. It is not uncommon for trained professionals to run out of ammunition and only find out when the slide locks back or the revolver fails to jump in their hand.

I've seen this on the street as well as in competition. While I've only lost count a few times with revolvers; autos tend to give a better notice, more overt. My characters tend to use automatics, as I regularly carried autos on the job. They are easier to reload and hold more. As for safeties on autos, well, I carried a 1911 style auto for many years and practiced thumbing off the safety. It HAS to be second nature. A novice character might run into problems. Your experienced character should NEVER have a problem, unles they are supposed to be inept.

JPS

The specter of an empty gun can bring some extra tension to the scene. Most actual fire fights in a non-battle situation are concluded within a few seconds, but an awful lot of rounds MISS.

Joseph Wambaugh wrote a book about San Diego's police unit trying to protect illegal aliens from assault, rape and murder from thugs on both sides of the border who preyed on illegals crossing the line--Lines and Shadows, it's one of his narrative non-fiction books. He analyzes about two dozen fire fights and the number of rounds exchanged is huge, but only two men were actually killed in all those fights. Lots of wounds, and multiple wounds, but only two deaths.

Regards,
Scott

As a reader, I've never paid attention to how many bullets were flying in a gun fight. To be honest, they could have someone shooting 12 rounds from a revolver and I'd never notice. And I've never written a scene where bullet counting was an issue.

Pretty technical

Ordinary_Guy said:

Okay, Mystery/Thriller/Suspense writers...

Most of us have written a scene with a gun in it. Maybe it's snubby .38 and the shooter is a jealous husband. Maybe it's an accurized .45 and your shooter is an FBI Special Agent. Your character could be anywhere between, below or beyond.

...But how close were you paying attention when that gun fired? Did you summarize the action? Did you have gritty play-by-play? Were your characters diving Neo-style in "bullet time"?

Lay it out for us: How technical does your action get?

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I've written a few big gun fight scenes, but as many have noted, most gunplay in stories is a matter of relatively few shots. For one reason or another my characters tend to have more than one gun if they have any and they tend to empty their magazines pretty fast so...for the most part, I haven't had to count shot-by-shot and I've just noted what happens as various parties are reloading (I use 3rd POV and pretty limited so people are not sure who is reloading when)...but this reminds me that there is a recent scene where I may have lost track of who had what gun.

I hate combat loading a shotgun. Talk about a pain in the BEE-hind.

When it comes to writing, I stay in the 19th Century. My characters carry precussion cap revolvers. They carry more than one. So they have been known to switch guns from time to time. But they have never reloaded. I recall writing a scene where one of them was cleaning his pistol though. For some reason, which escapes me at the moment, it was important.

I should add that everything I write takes place prior to 1873 and the introduction of the Colt 45.

Brady

Hail of Bullets

MadScientistMatt said:

I've had guns show up in stories, but I haven't yet had a situation where enough shots got fired to warrant counting the rounds. I'd only see it as important if the following conditions are met:

1. The individual shots get mentioned, instead of the proverbial hail of bullets.

2. The weapon is identified, at least specifically enough that it's possible to have some idea of how many rounds it should have in it. Lots of people can't tell a Mosin Nagant from a Winchester 94, but anyone who's watched Westerns will probably know that revolvers often have six bullets in them.

3. The gun comes anywhere near emptying its clip (cylinder, etc) in one scene.

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Now I'm tempted to Put some Mosin-Nagants into some scenes.

On the other hand, one of the advantages of using weapons with box magazines is that you can track the magazines and still have some hails of bullet effects on doors, windows, art works and home furnishings.

Very Cool Choice

SOKAL, my character carries a S&W 662, an obscure compact stainless auto from the 80's. I owned one, and the front sights sucked, but it was a sweet shooter, nontheless.

I think it would be terribly cool to use a Moisan Nagant in a story. How ecclectic.

JPS

Sorry...

For the triple post, but I had my character shoot back with a single shot flare gun. No sense in counting there!

JPS

In my opinion, counting off the rounds falls into the category of "gun porn" or "war porn". If you want to write that sort of thing, and if you've got folks who want to pay you to read that sort of thing, go for it. But character motivations and internal drives have taken a back seat to the circumstances of some particular weapon. It gets really twisted if the scene is basically an easter egg to reward the gun-fanatic reader who happens to know the number of rounds that a Colt Commander .45 can carry in a clip, rather than a scene that rewards all readers because the scene is about the characters and the author has informed the reader of everything they need to know about those characters.

put another way, who gives a rats patootie how many arrows Legolas carried in LotR? Or how many shots Chewbacca had in his crossbow? The weapons are completely fiction, so there is no possibility of an easter egg for the gun-fanatic, because it's all made up anyway. And what you're left with is that the story doesn't hinge around Legolas carrying 25 arrows or Chewbacca having 200 shots in his crossbow, it hinges around the story.

But war porn sells. And so does character driven stories. But they're completely different stories. Just know what you're writing and know who you intend to sell it to.

Cool pieces

jpserra said:

SOKAL, my character carries a S&W 662, an obscure compact stainless auto from the 80's. I owned one, and the front sights sucked, but it was a sweet shooter, nontheless.

I think it would be terribly cool to use a Moisan Nagant in a story. How ecclectic.

JPS

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I've never even heard of a S&W 662. Sounds very cool though.

There must be plenty of Mosin-Nagants out there...though it might be tempting to have a character use the bayonet or the butt.

"Use the butt, chump!"

Ah....the violenceography of violence.

there is a middle ground that writers have to be conscious of.

There is a certain level of realism you need to understand if you want your readers to give you the benefit of the doubt: "Hm, the author hasn't listed the individual shots fired, but it feels realistic enough that I'll assume he's keeping track" You don't want a cop pulling out a sidearm and letting off 200 rounds non-stop. If you're writing a James Bond or a Die Hard, that might be possible to accept, but if you're writing a CSI style story, it won't fly.

And there are certain fiction memes that are simply accepted in certain genres. There will always be certain types of stories where people crawl through the air ducts, even though that's complete fantasy. And there will always be stories where there's a gunfight, someone empties a clip, and during the time he takes to reload, the other guy jumps him. Changing a clip doesn't take that long in real life. And if you've ducked down enough for cover, no one will be able to pop up in the two-three seconds you're busy to pop one in your behind. Release-drop-insert-chamber and you're ready to fire again.

Changing clips should be a non-event. You might mention it like you might describe how a character ducks for cover, but it's not a good idea to have it be the cause of a sudden change in the battle.

I suggest folks try paintballing to get a feel for the flow of a gunfight. At least with regards to handguns, its a pretty good approximation. Or if you're trying to write something about urban combat that is at short ranges. Rifles and military combat will take place on longer ranges and on bigger scales than you can get with a paintball gun, so it might not give you the feel for that, but for some things, it replicates well.

And do paintball, not lasertag. Paintball hurts like hell, and "dieing" is painful. and will leave a bruise for a week. Lasertag folks will do all sorts of stupid things because getting "shot" isn't a big deal, just wait till the next game.

I handled an out of ammo situation like this:
"The mass of troops got close inside the fifty-meter line of supporting mortar fire. “Gonna be now”, Omtombe thought. He pulled his legs under himself. Switched the magazine for a full one. Other men in the platoon stood up, firing from the hip, so they wouldn’t get overrun and killed on the ground.
He shot the same damned officer again. THIS time he’s down. A round struck Temolo square in the chest - threw him back almost a meter. The ground slammed him in the back. He didn’t think he was bleeding. “Good stuff!” this body armor.

Firing from flat on his back, he took down two more. He shuddered when his magazine went dry. He fumbled for his pistol, but the victorious Republic troops, suddenly stopped.
A hail of plasma fire passed right over Omtombe and fried two or three men who were planning to skewer him with bayonets. The Republic troops broke and started to run away.

“What the hell?” he said out loud. More machine gun fire and plasma bolts from behind him caused him to roll over. “Well ****!” A whole platoon of battle suit infantry was moving up in counter-attack.

As they passed, Omtombe said; “What took you guys so long?”

A suited trooper squatted down. It was strange hearing a voice from a faceless suit. “You hurt, Lieutenant?”

“I think I’ll live, thanks.”

“Rally your unit, Lieutenant we’re gonna motivate them to run away.”

“You do that.” The armored line passed, starting to run as only augmented infantry can run at almost fifty kilometers an hour.

He sat up and checked out the place he’d been shot. There was something cold pressing into his chest. Struggling out of the armor, he found a seven-millimeter bullet just poking through the inside of the armor vest.
His sternum was one huge bruise, and sore as hell.

One of the medics stopped by and checked him out. “Lieutenant, I think you got four broken ribs and a cracked sternum. Lay back and relax, don’t move around, you’ll puncture a lung.”"